Local News
Award winning architect Ed Calnitsky adds Theology degree to resumé
By MYRON LOVE Ed Calnitsky has recently added a notable entry to his resumé. At an age when most individuals—myself excluded—are contemplating retirement, the accomplished architect chose to return part-time to university and pursue studies in theology. About a year ago, he graduated from the University of Winnipeg with a Master of Arts in Theology and was honored with the Gawthrop Prize for achieving the highest grade point average in Theology at the University’s United Centre for Theological Studies.
Calnitsky, a graduate of the former Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate, is only one of a select few of our Jewish community to earn an MA in Theology from the University of Winnipeg.
Calnitsky has been an architect for more than 30 years, and we have been friends since high school. In the fall of 1971, the two of us—along with a mutual friend—embarked on a trip to Europe. In London, our first stop, he secured a position with a British architectural firm, where he worked for three months. Afterwards, he traveled to Israel, where an opportunity arose to work for a leading architectural firm in Caracas, Venezuela. Calnitsky spent the subsequent summer working in Caracas for that company. “Working for architectural firms in both London, England and Caracas gave me the opportunity to understand how architecture is practiced in different countries,” he recalls.
Upon returning to Canada, he was hired to teach design at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. After three years, he returned to Winnipeg, where he met Linda, his future wife, and decided to return to university to earn a degree in architecture.
In 1986, he established Calnitsky Associates Architects Inc., a multidisciplinary architectural and interior design firm, focusing on commercial and institutional projects across Canada and in the United States.
Some of Calnitsky’s most prestigious projects have included the Canadian Embassy Reconfiguration in Kyiv, Ukraine and the Canadian High Commissioner’s Residence and CIDA Offices in Bridgetown, Barbados. Other notable projects include the new Gillam Town Centre with PSA Studio Inc. – which received a Canadian Architect Award; the Manitoba Law Courts Building renovation involving the restoration of all courtrooms and judge’s chambers; and a major retrofit and upgrade to Assiniboine Park Pavilion in Winnipeg.
Notably, Calnitsky was also the architect for the new Congregation Etz Chayim Synagogue on Wilkes Avenue. Working together with lead architect Carlos Schor and interior designers Bernice Chorney and Frances Winograd, they converted the former Khartum Shriners Temple into a beautifully functioning synagogue. Calnitsky notes that “I’ve never been a solo practitioner, I’ve always sought out a group. Designing the new Etz Chayim Synagogue epitomizes this approach.”
Among his clients are an increasing number of church groups, and in this regard, Calnitsky was recently invited by Ruth Ashrafi to speak to this aspect of his practice in a presentation to Winnipeg’s Catholic-Jewish Dialogue Group. The presentation was appropriately titled “Lessons from a Jewish Architect Designing Churches.”
“I designed my first church about 20 years ago for a Christian Reformed Church congregation in Northwestern Ontario,” Calnitsky recalls. “I had to design it from scratch and knew virtually nothing about Christianity or Church architecture.”
Determined to educate himself, he began researching these subjects and found his interest deepening. “I gained valuable insights into the relationship of Christian theology and church architecture. Church architecture is a reflection of Christian theology, and its understanding is integral to the design.”
Currently, Calnitsky is working on churches in Winnipeg for Coptic Christian, Ethiopian, Nigerian, and Eritrean congregations—the latter involving renovations to the former Rosh Pina/Congregation Etz Chayim building on Matheson Avenue.
What surprised him most, Calnitsky notes, is the significant influence of Judaism on Christian theology, as well as the historical animosity that Christianity has often held towards Judaism. He points to an example of this hostility in the placement of stained glass windows within churches. As worship is oriented east to the altar, stained glass windows are typically located in the north and south walls, with the south walls receiving more sunlight and therefore, appearing brighter. Consequently, scenes from the Hebrew Bible are often depicted in the windows of the darker north wall, while the New Testament windows bask in sunlight.
“While the Romans violently suppressed the Jewish rebellion in 70 AD, they largely tolerated Jews throughout the rest of the empire,” Calnitsky observes. “It was only after Roman Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire that widespread demonization of Judaism began.”
Calnitsky notes that “for centuries, Christian scholars and theologians perpetuated a distorted view of Judaism as a legalistic religion of “works-righteousness” filled with empty rituals and practices that earned one salvation through a merit-based approach. Christianity, in stark contrast to Judaism, was portrayed as a moral, universalistic religion of grace, love, and forgiveness. Generation after generation, Christian teaching of contempt towards Jews characterized Judaism as the perfect dark background against which Christianity could shine all the more brilliantly.”
He notes that it was only after the Holocaust that Christian theologians began to reconsider their views about Jews and Judaism. Pope John XXIII and the Vatican Council in 1963 began shifting Catholic attitudes towards Jews. However, the true turning point occurred in 1977 with the publication of Paul and Palestinian Judaism by New Testament scholar E.P. Sanders. Calnitsky highlights how Sanders’ research into Jewish scriptures debunked the long-standing misrepresentations of Jews and Judaism by Christians, often without ever engaging with Jewish perspectives.
His own master’s thesis examined Pauline scholarship and Jewish-Christian dialogue, emphasizing the need to read the Apostle Paul within a Jewish context. “Paul did not convert to Christianity, nor was he anti-Jewish,” Calnitsky asserts. “He understood his calling to be turning pagans from their own gods to the god of Israel through Christ; he didn’t believe the Jews needed saving.”
Recently, Calnitsky was invited to present a paper on the Apostle Paul at the annual conference of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies at McGill University. His paper, entitled “The Architecture of the Apostle: Reconstructing Paul,” affirms the position that Paul was not a Christian, and should be understood within the framework of Judaism. Paul had no issues with Jews and Judaism, and his gospel was about messianic salvation for Gentiles and pagans, leaving the Jewish covenant with God intact, with no supersession of Judaism by Christianity and no end of days conversion to Christ.
Despite this evolving attitude among Christian theologians and scholars towards Jews and Judaism, Calnitsky remains cautious, expressing skepticism about whether the persistent scourge of anti-Semitism will ever fully dissipate.
As for architecture, Calnitsky has not lost his love or enthusiasm for his work, stating that “I believe that you should never stop doing what you love.”
Local News
Application filed by two former members of Etz Chayim Congregation against the congregation to have their memberships restored dismissed by judge
The following is taken from the Canadian Jewish News website: “Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench has dismissed Hadass Eviatar and David Hoult’s application challenging the termination of their membership at Congregation Etz Chayim. In his decision, Justice Vic Toews noted that, although Hoult’s letter describing a hypothetical attack on the synagogue may have lacked sensitivity given the political climate, he did not intend to threaten violence against congregants. However, the judge ruled that the court did not have jurisdiction to intervene in the membership dispute under Manitoba’s Corporations Act, finding that the couple had no financial, proprietary or economic interest that would entitle them to the remedies they sought. The judge concluded that religious organizations are generally free to determine their own membership rules and ordered each side to bear its own legal costs.”
If you would like to read the original article that broke the story about the battle between Hadaass Eviatar and David Hoult with Etz Chayim Congregation you can go to Epic Court Battle.”
Local News
Jewish Federation now says Jewish population of Winnipeg in 2021 (according to the census) was 13,940 – not the 16,000 figure that the Federation had been touting for years
By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted Oct. 27, 2026) Longtime readers of The Jewish Post & News (and this website) would probably know that I have long had a very strong interest in establishing as accurate figures as possible when it has come to reporting the size of Winnipeg’s Jewish community.
For years I argued that our Jewish Federation was exaggerating the size of our Jewish population. I heard the figure of 16,000 bandied about by leaders in our community quite often when it came to reporting the size of our Jewish population – without any empirical evidence to back that figure up.
I had long maintained that the only reasonably accurate figures when it came to reporting the size of Winnipeg’s Jewish population were those produced by the late Evelyn Katz, when she was the unofficial demographer for the Jewish Federation – over 30 years ago. What Evelyn would do is keep careful track of births, deaths, numbers of newcomers but, perhaps most important: the number of people who had left our community.
Thus, in August 2022 when I interviewed Faye Rosenberg Cohen who, at the time, was just about to retire as the Jewish Federation’s Chief Planning and Allocations Officer, I was somewhat astonished to hear Faye say, when I asked her what proportion of our Jewish community was made up of immigrants, she answered that “I can honestly say when I look at those numbers it’s somewhere around 1/3 of the community.”
In response, I asked: “So you’d say it’s somewhere between 4-5,000?”
Faye said: “I think it’s more than that.”
I wrote in that article, “I indicated my skepticism at that time, saying ‘You know that I’ve always been skeptical about the numbers that have been used by the Federation for the population of the Jewish community. I think though that it’s always been more of a case of identification – who identifies as Jewish.’ ”
Later, after the results of the 2021 census were released, I wrote that “if you take into account the results of the 2021 census, the Jewish community cannot be larger than 14,270 at a maximum. But that figure would also include anyone who had either said either their ethnic origin was Jewish or their religion was Jewish.”
Since many of the individuals who had said on the 2021 census that their ethnic origin was Jewish, but their religion was something else, I maintained that ascertaining the real size of our Jewish community was highly problematic.
Still, for the sake of argument I was willing to accept that, realistically, it was somewhere between 13,000-14,000 – but nowhere close to the figure of 16,000 that had come to be suggested by our then president of the Jewish Federation or by other leading figures in our community.
So, it was with a sense of satisfaction that I heard Sharon Graham, who is now the Jewish Federation’s Community Planning and Allocations Lead say to an audience of over 50 people who were at the Gwen Secter Centre on Thursday, October 22, that the Jewish community in 2021 was – at a maximum: 13,940.
Sharon was at the Gwen Secter Centre to speak to Remis Lecture attendees. Her presentation preceded a presentation by Jewish Federation CEO Jeff Lieberman. Sharon used a PowerPoint presentation to provide some very interesting insights into where our Jewish community was at in 2021- and I’m offering some parts of her presentation here for you to read because I thought they were so interesting.
I had actually made many of the same observations about the results of the 2021 census in my own reporting back in 2022, but seeing what I had written confirmed by the Jewish Federation’s point person on planning told me that Sharon has a much more realistic view of our community than did Faye Rosenberg Cohen.
Here, for instance, is a slide that shows the proportion of our Jewish community that is made up of immigrants. It’s slightly under one fifth, not the one third percentage that Faye had suggested.
But, what really set Sharon’s presentation apart from anything else I’ve ever seen presented by someone from the Jewish Federation – other than the aforementioned Evelyn Katz, was the slide she projected which showed that, while there had been a large influx of newcomers to Winnipeg’s Jewish community between 2016-2021 there had also been a significantly high number of people who had left our Jewish community in those same years, as you can see in the following slide:
That is something we just don’t hear discussed by leaders of our Jewish organizations, but let’s be realistic: For many newcomers who came to Winnipeg and were counted as new members of our Jewish community, Winnipeg – for a variety of reasons, was a stepping stone to other communities. It may have been for reasons of better job opportunities, moving closer to other family members, or – the reason that we hear so often when it comes to people saying they want to leave Winnipeg: the weather.
But, whatever the reason, Sharon’s figures show that, as much as GrowWinnipeg may have been an abiding success when it’s come to attracting newcomers to our Jewish community here, getting them to stay long term is a different story.
And, while there were other aspects of Sharon’s presentation that certainly merit discussion, especially the figures she produced about intermarriage, rather than delving into them here, I thought it useful simply to insert them for you, the reader, to see – and draw your own conclusions.
Local News
Marty Green expands his protest against extremist Jewish settlers to two more venues – and is arrested twice more
(Tuesday, October 27) We received the following press release about Marty Green being arrested again, both at the University of Manitoba and at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue:
Both sides came to blows on Saturday, October 24, at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue as security personnel sought to prevent Marty Green from interfering with synagogue traffic as he protested just outside synagogue grounds against the actions of religious settlers in Israel’s occupied West Bank territory. Synagogue Executive Director Rena Secter Elbaze quickly intervened to prevent further escalation. Police arrived shorty thereafter and detained Green for 45 minutes before driving him home and releasing him. It is not clear whether their decision not to lay charges was the result of their own onsite investigation or whether it was at the request of the synagogue executive.
Green has now been arrested four times in the last month and faces multiple charges for disturbing the peace, including two episodes at the Asper Campus and one more this past Friday (Oct. 23) at the University of Manitoba. While Green says initially he was merely handing out leaflets (at the Asper Campus), since his first arrest on September 23, he has returned to the campus with a large placard and an acccordion, accompanying himself while singing songs with lyrics that include such phrases as “The Jews Are Bananas….B-A-N-A-N-A-S”. In addition to listing actions of the religious settlers as including arson, vandalism, and theft, he pointedly alleges that the IDF has been backing up the settlers in their actions.
Green had earlier notified the Shaarey Zedek that he was contemplating bringing his protest to the synagogue. He was told that if he attempted to enter the grounds he would be prevented from doing so. At that time, Secter Elbaze told Green that his intentions were inappropriate, declaring the synagogue to be “a house of worship dedicated to prayer, learning, community, and spiritual engagement.” Green responded that if the synagogue were willing to contact the Crown and inform them that “that there was never any legal basis for their claims that I was conducting myself inappropriately at the Asper Campus” (with regard to his earlier arrests) that he would “voluntarily refrain from carrying his informational campaign to the synagogue(s).”
Green further argues that the recent “psak” (religious ruling) by leading Israeli rabbi Rov Dov Lior, in which Lior declares that it is not merely permissible but praiseworthy for Jews to steal olives from Arab orchards….that this ruling brings his protest within the proper realm of religious discourse. He says further that if the local rabbis were willing to speak out to their congregations against the aforesaid psak, that he might have refrained from taking his campaign to their grounds.
Although Green was released on Saturday without charges, police confiscated his placard. They explained that it was being held as evidence pending an investigation by Major Crimes as to whether it constituted hate literature.
There was no further information given as to what happened at the University of Manitoba.
